The Best Mortars and Pestles of 2024

Written by Lindsay D. Mattison, Professional chef, recipe developer, and product tester with years of experience in home and restaurant kitchens.

Updated March 12, 2024

If you use a food processor or spice grinder, you might not think you need a mortar and pestle, like our top pick, the Frieling Cilio Goliath Mortar and Pestle (available at Amazon) . In some ways, you could be right: Modern electrical appliances can do everything this ancient tool can do, faster and without the extra elbow grease. But are you sacrificing flavor by tossing pesto ingredients into a food processor, and can you get more out of spices like peppercorns and coriander seeds if you crush them by hand?

After testing nine of the top mortars and pestles, we can say that the food we made in these hand-powered tools had an extra-special quality to them. Doing things the old-fashioned way and crushing the ingredients (instead of cutting them with a blade) released more flavors and aromas, resulting in a better-tasting product. That said, not all the mortars and pestles could handle the tasks we threw at them. The ones that exhibited the highest results and were the easiest to use were made from granite, but we also discovered a few favorites made from stoneware and marble that doubled as gorgeous serving bowls.

Other Mortals and Pestles We Tested

Laevo Reversible Marble Mortar and Pestle

When it comes to overall score, the Laevo Reversible Marble Mortar and Pestle actually tied with our winning granite pick. This marble mortar and pestle set is well-designed and functional, and it looks great doing it. It comes with a non-slip pad, which keeps the bowl from sliding around when in use.

The pestle has a comfortable grip, and it's heavy enough to do most of the grinding work for you. The inside of the mortar is rough enough to crush peppercorns into a fine powder and turn garlic into a paste, and its two-cup capacity is large enough to fit a batch of pesto. As a bonus, the mortar doubles as a really beautiful serving bowl for guacamole! If our winning pick is out of stock or you are specifically looking for a marble model, this is the one for you.

Pros

• Handsome looking

• Includes no-slip pad

• Comfortable grip

Cons

• None that we could find

Buy now at Amazon

Emile Henry Mortar & Pestle

There's a lot to like about the Emile Henry. The ceramic mortar is glazed on the outside but has an unglazed, nonporous interior. It's just rough enough to mash garlic into a paste and grind peppercorns. Without ridges inside, this mortar and pestle struggles to turn peppercorns into as fine a powder as its granite competition, and it has trouble with turning chili peppers into curry paste.

But the thing we really love about the Emile Henry is its smart design. The 2-cup capacity bowl has tall edges to keep food from splashing out, and the four-corner design makes it easy to grip. That’s an important feature since the bowl isn't heavy enough to stay put on its own as it's used. The wooden-handled pestle is also extremely comfortable, and the whole thing looks nice enough to double as a serving bowl. It's dishwasher safe, too!

Pros

• Good looking enough to double as servingware

• Easy to grip

• Comfortable pestle

Cons

• Can't compete with granite for texture

$52.16 from Amazon

Gramercy Kitchen Co. Mortar and Pestle

Gramercy Kitchen Co. makes a gorgeous marble mortar and pestle that would look great on any countertop. It features smooth marble on the outside and grooved, slightly rough edges on the interior. When it came to performance, though, this wouldn’t be our top pick.

It has tall edges, so nothing spilled out as we used it, but we’re not sure it actually has a full two-cup capacity. It was just barely big enough to make our batch of pesto, and a one-avocado guacamole completely filled the bowl. Where it really fell short was the pestle, which wasn’t long enough and caused our fist to rub uncomfortably against the side of the mortar.

Pros

• Handsome marble construction

• Grooved, rough edges inside the bowl

• Tall sides

Cons

• Short pestle

• Small capacity

Buy now at Amazon

What You Should Know About Buying a Mortar and Pestle

Every task you can throw at a mortar and pestle can be done—more hands-off and faster—by an electrical appliance. Mini food processors or blenders can make pesto and curry paste, and spice grinders can turn hard peppercorns into a pile of dust in a matter of seconds. You can even make things like guacamole without any extra tools—just chop your ingredients and combine them with a fork in a regular old bowl.

So why invest in a mortar and pestle? It’s traditional, and it preserves the way food was made for hundreds of years. Before electricity, how do you think curry paste was made? How about crushing spices to add pungent flavor and fresh aromas to soups and stews? Yup, you guessed it, the mortar and pestle. What makes this device so special is its ability to crush food and mash plant fibers until they’re as soft as a puree. Just use the pestle for grinding the ingredient inside the mortar bowl.

When we compared hand-made pesto in the mortar and pestle with the one we made in a blender, the difference was night and day. Our hard work and elbow grease produced a sauce that had more flavor and aroma as compared to the one made with the stainless steel blades of the blender. Even guacamole tasted better—crushing the onion, garlic, and cilantro before adding the avocado brought out essential oils and flavors that weren’t detectable in our fork-mashed version.

Once you have a mortar and pestle, you'll use it for so much more than grinding spices. Pull it out the next time you make salad dressings or dips; use it to crush fresh herbs to release their essential oils; you can even pulverize fruit for pie filling or baby food. The possibilities are endless!

What to Look For in a Mortar and Pestle

Not all of the mortars and pestles passed our tests. The stainless steel model wasn’t able to do much more than crush peppercorns, and the marble and stone mortars and pestles didn’t have a rough enough interior to fully pulverize fresh and dried chilies into a paste.

The first thing to look at is the pestle weight, size, and shape. If it’s not comfortable to use, it doesn’t matter how effective it is, so it’s worth being picky in this department. Too-short pestles forced our hands into the mortar, scraping them against the sides, and ones without broad bottoms seemed to push food around the inside without actually crushing it. When you’re looking at the setup, you want the pestle to stick out of the bowl a few inches. Ideally, it’s also rounded on the top so it won’t dig uncomfortably into your palm as you use it. It’s also good if it’s heavy—that means it will do a lot of the crushing for you!

From there, you want a mortar that’s not polished on the inside. The more rough grooves it has, the better; these grip onto the food and help obliterate the fibers to create a paste or puree. Stoneware and marble mortars and pestles have lightly rough insides, but the granite models seemed to do the best job at gripping and ripping. They also felt the sturdiest, not moving around as much as we used them, and we weren’t afraid they might crack and chip like ceramic.

The final factor is bowl shape and size. Mortars that were too wide don’t have adequate rims to keep the food from spilling out as you crush it. This becomes especially problematic with tiny little peppercorns, which just love jumping around on the countertops. When it comes to size, it’s really up to you to decide how you’ll use it. If you cook for a crowd and you want plenty of extra space, go for a mortar with a four-cup capacity. A two-cup model works just fine for most tasks, and anything smaller than that can likely only handle crushing small amounts of nuts or seeds.

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